He pushed open the door and came into the shop, and little Miss Barrie behind the counter and the half-dozen customers waiting to be served looked up and were silent. Christine felt the wave of resentment reaching out to envelop Huntley and in the same instant she was smiling.
“I thought we would meet again quite soon,” she said. “I know you’ve been busy, but I felt sure I would run up against you in the village.”
She had made up her mind to hear only his own version of the difficulties at the quarries, scorning all gossip, and here was her chance to acknowledge him in the eyes of the village.
She saw him draw up, as if he had come upon something for which he had not been prepared, and then he smiled and said with no more than casual friendliness, “Kinaird isn’t exactly Glasgow. We were bound to meet sooner or later.”
Something in his voice stung her, but she realized that he had spoken deliberately and with an almost callous desire to disassociate himself from her in the eyes of the village.
During the days that followed, she went about the task of helping her father with a consciousness of effort that distressed her all the more when she realized she was utterly incapable of fighting it.
After that one meeting with Huntley in the post office she saw nothing of him for more than a week, but on two occasions she met Laura Bramshaw, and Laura, for some reason best known to herself, was disposed to be friendly.
“We really ought to have met some time ago,” she told Christine on their first encounter. “I’ve been telling Huntley that we should help liven this place up while we are here—arrange a party or two and that sort of thing. It must be hopelessly dull for you and your sister, for instance. Of course,” she added with a quizzical smile, “you may not mean to stay.”
Christine looked back at her steadily.
“Kinaird is my home,” she said, “and I have never found it dull.”
Laura laughed, quite determined not to be snubbed.
“But surely you can’t be busy all the time?” she countered. “A little relaxation is a necessary thing, don’t you think? What about that pretty cousin of yours—Miss Lamington, wasn’t it? Huntley and I traveled up in the train with her.”
“Huntley and I” seemed to be the keynote in everything Laura had to say, Christine thought unhappily, but she would not let Laura see how easily she could inflict a hurt.
“Iona is going to be married quite soon,” she said, and was quite unprepared for the look of relief that spread over the other girl’s face.
“It’s really too absurd of me,” Laura admitted with a little, affected laugh, “but I half imagined Huntley was interested in your cousin when he visited her so often. She is sweet,” she conceded with the generosity of relief, “and she had been ill, hadn’t she? I think that always appeals to a man’s sense of chivalry or protection or what have you! Huntley made quite a fuss even after she got here. He even left one of my little cocktail parties to go down and see how she was because he had made some ridiculous promise or other.”
Again she seemed to be watching Christine for her reactions. “Huntley has always been generous where ... lonely people were concerned,” she heard herself saying. “He was quite helpful in Glasgow once or twice—”
“Huntley should never have left Glasgow!” Laura cut in quickly. “He’s far too fond of the bright lights ever to settle away from them, and all his friends are there. They are firmly convinced, of course, that all this quarrying up here is only a phase and that it is just a matter of time before he goes back.”
On the occasion of her second meeting with Laura, Christine was not alone. Rhona had gone with her to the village to post Douglas’s wedding present, which they had bought in Fort William the day before, and they were making their way home when a car slowed up behind them and came to a halt as it drew level. Laura was at the wheel, and she leaned out, saying almost peremptorily, “Where can I get tickets for the tennis dance? I want to bring a party. Some friends of mine have arrived from Glasgow, and I thought it might break the deadly monotony for them!”
Rhona left Christine to answer, although she was the secretary of the tennis club and knew much more about the ticket position.
“I think it could be managed,” Christine said, trying to still the eager, foolish beating of her heart as she wondered if Huntley would come to the dance. “My sister should be able to get you the necessary tickets.”
“It’s generally a very small dance,” Rhona put in, stiffly for her. “You know it’s just in the club hall, of course?”
There was a quiet dignity in her voice which was a rebuff to Laura’s half-contemptuous request, but Laura chose to laugh it aside and said pleasantly, “Do try to get me half a dozen tickets, Miss Helmsdale! We will be a party of five, and Huntley will be there too!”
She was so sure, Christine thought as the big gray car moved noiselessly away.
“I don’t like Laura Bramshaw,” Rhona said flatly, “and I don’t see why we should oblige her by getting her tickets. She’ll come to the dance believing that she’s honoring us with her presence, and we don’t feel a bit that way about it! They’re a rowdy crowd, and they generally come down late, after dinner at the Mains and a drink or two. I don’t mind the odd cocktail,” she added, “but it’s this business of favoring us that gets me down. I wonder if Huntley will come with them?”
“Which suggests that you are going to get them the tickets!” Christine smiled. “The club needs the funds, Rho, so don’t worry about Laura Bramshaw too much.”
Rhona looked at her accusingly.
“It was mostly for your sake. I know you don’t like her,” she said.
“I’ll still go to the dance,” Christine replied. “After all, we both have our partners.”
“You’ve got Gordon Caitland and I’ve got George Pringle!” Rhona made a wry mouth. “I don’t know why I agreed to go with George.”
“For the same reason that I agreed to go with Gordon,” Christine enlightened her.
As the day of the dance drew nearer, Christine wondered if she was wise to go at all. She had not seen Huntley for more than a week, and now, if she saw him at all, he would be in Laura’s company at the dance. Her heart contracted at the thought, but she knew that she must go for Rhona’s sake and because she had no valid excuse for backing out.
They arrived at their destination as the band was striking up the first waltz, and Christine glanced around the gaily festooned hall, realizing how much work her sister had put into its decoration. She found herself watching for Laura’s appearance with a rapidly increasing interest that turned to cold disappointment when ten o’clock came and supper was announced. It was quite obvious that Laura did not intend to come now, and surely the only reason for such a decision was that the dinner party at the Mains had proved entertaining enough without the doubtful attraction of a village dance to follow.
Gordon Caitland, looking heated and slightly ruffled after a strenuous reel, took her in to supper and Rhona joined them at their table with George Pringle. He was a short, dark-haired young man with protruding teeth and intensely blue eyes whose lack of looks was balanced by a nice turn of wit which kept them amused while they consumed egg and tomato sandwiches, followed by coffee and ice cream.
Christine ate her desert slowly, listening to someone in the hall beyond playing a waltz. The members of the dance band were still busy with their suppers and the pianist must have been one of the dancers, but there were few strangers in the hall, and she was quite sure that she would have been aware of it if anyone in Kinaird played like that. There was no denying the brilliance of touch and sense of rhythm that sent those rippling notes floating in through the open doorway of the supper room.
“Are we all ready? We seem to be missing something,” Christine said.
She walked toward the doorway, standing on the other side to survey the half-empty hall beyond.
At the piano on the platform sat a thin young man with sleek fair hair brushed back from a long
, narrow brow and thick, horn-rimmed spectacles bridging an aquiline nose. He was giving all his attention to the instrument he was playing with such brilliance that the silent, appreciative audience he had gathered round him equalled the dancers in number. The girl who stood at his elbow smiling patiently seemed to accept her passive role as part of the penalty she must pay for having partnered a genius. They were Laura Bramshaw’s friends. There was no mistaking them, Christine thought, as she looked around for Laura herself.
She saw her almost at once, dressed dramatically in black, and it was almost ridiculous to feel such a sense of elation at the fact that Laura was not dancing with Huntley. What did it matter? Huntley would be in Laura’s party, and what was one dance, more or less?
Gordon Caitland was worrying about the car.
“Suppose your father gets a call?” he suggested as they began to circle the room to the strains of a popular waltz. “I really should have taken it back as soon as I dropped you here.”
“If you really are worrying,” Christine advised on a mad impulse born of a sudden desire to fly from the hall before she could meet Huntley, “we can go now. George will bring Rhona home. It isn’t far to walk.”
“And spoil your evening—no fear!” Gordon declared. “I’ll take the car back and come down again. It won’t take more than half an hour, and then we can all walk home.”
“Just as you like.” The impulse to escape this meeting with Huntley had passed. “I’ll wait for you. I expect there are several people who think they owe me a duty dance!”
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” he asked diffidently.
“Perfectly sure!” Her eyes twinkled suddenly. “I’ve been allowed to come to these dances since I was fourteen!”
“I am an ass!” He laughed and apologized. “I won’t be long, but I’ll feel better about everything when I’ve returned the car.”
Then, without sign or conscious movement, she found herself looking toward the door and there was Huntley standing looking down the hall with a slightly amused grin on his face. For a moment she felt that she hated him. Why had he come if it was only to join Laura’s party and mock at their humble efforts at enjoyment? Then she saw that he was looking beyond her at the pianist on the platform. She turned her back on him and walked away, but before she had taken a dozen steps she heard his voice behind her.
“Everything seems to be going very well, Christine.”
She turned to face him, meeting his eyes with a tiny flame of resentment in her own.
“Yes,” she agreed evenly. “Even your friends seem to be enjoying themselves.”
As soon as the words were uttered she regretted them, but she could not take them back, and he made no direct reply to her bitter little remark, saying instead, “Shall we dance? I find Howard keeps excellent time.”
“Your friend at the piano?”
“Yes,” he acknowledged as he put his arm firmly around her. “It’s not his usual line, of course. He’s amazingly talented, though he may not look it.”
She flushed, suddenly ashamed of her petulance.
“He plays beautifully,” she admitted. “It was ... very kind of him to think of filling in for the band.”
“Laura gathers quite interesting people around her occasionally,” he observed, “but Howard should really be my responsibility when he is up here.” He was frowning at a memory, and she wondered if he had wished to take his friend to Glenavon and had been denied this hospitality by old Ben. “He’s quite a reasonable type and he’s interested in our countryside. He has been composing for several years now—orchestral stuff, mostly—and I thought Lochaber might inspire him.”
“I feel humiliated—saying what I did,” she confessed swiftly. “I ...I had no idea—”
“Don’t worry! Mistakes are made easily enough, especially when most of the people who come to the Mains are not exactly the Kinaird type.”
“How long will your friend stay?”
“Tim?” He looked toward the platform, a faint smile chasing the shadows from his eyes. “Not very long at the Mains.”
“Will he go to Glenavon?”
“Not at the moment,” he said. “As you know, my uncle suffers from gout, and he is in the middle of one of his spells at present. When he is almost over it and able to go about, the effect still seems to linger in his system,” he added dryly.
Christine smiled.
“He really isn’t as bad as all that, you know,” she said.
“Your father appears to be the only person in Kinaird to whom he will listen with any semblance of reason,” he observed. “He paid us a visit the other day and there was a marked improvement all around. Even I responded and kept my temper when I might have lost it!”
Christine’s eyes were happy now and for a moment, as she circled the room in his arms, she felt that life was indeed complete. When the music ceased Laura Bramshaw thrust herself between them.
“How wicked of you to keep us waiting all this time, Huntley!” she exclaimed playfully, but with a good deal of seriousness behind her watchful eyes. “I simply refuse to believe that you were too busy to come to dinner!”
“It’s perfectly true, all the same, but I won’t bore you with the details.” He was looking at Christine’s averted head. “Are you with a party?” he asked her.
“Yes.” Christine’s only wish was to escape before Laura’s proprietary air had spoiled that fleeting moment of completeness when she had danced in Huntley’s arms. “My sister and two friends—my father’s locum, as a matter of fact. He has gone to return the car in case it might be needed before we get home.” Laura was waiting impatiently to whisk Huntley away to where her other guests stood around the piano, and Christine was too proud to linger.
“I hope your uncle will soon be well,” she said to Huntley and gave Laura a gay little nod as she turned away in search of Rhona and George Pringle.
During the remainder of the evening Laura claimed Huntley exclusively. They were a noisy party and drew attention wherever they went.
Soon it was the last dance and Gordon had not returned.
“It couldn’t have taken him almost two hours to get home and back!” Christine exclaimed impatiently as they stood waiting at the hall door. “But he quite definitely isn’t here, so we’ll have to walk.” Huntley detached himself from the group around Laura’s car. “Can I help?” he asked. “I’m going your way.”
He held open the door of his car. “If you’ll get in,” he said, but before they could place themselves the coupe rattled around the bend in the road and Gordon Caitland brought it to a standstill in front of the lighted doorway.
“I’m frightfully sorry, Chris,” he apologized, “but your father had to go up the glen—Belle Cumming’s infant has arrived—and the old coupe let me down coming back.”
They thanked Huntley, and when they were safely packed into the coupe Christine looked back and saw him standing at the door of his own car while a girl called Judith made some laughing remark that brought no sign of mirth to his dark face.
Belle Cumming’s baby was the start of a series of births in the village and the remote glens, that kept the doctor and his young assistant busy for the next day or two, and Christine was busy in consequence.
Then, abruptly one afternoon, the peace of Kinaird was disrupted by a dull explosion that seemed to shake the very air with its intensity and rumble back from the surrounding hills in billowing echo. It could have come from nowhere but the quarries. But it occasioned her no more than a moment’s thought, and she had forgotten it completely by the time she had reached the house.
The house seemed very quiet, perhaps in contrast with the sound of the explosion higher up the glen, and something heavy seemed to hang in the air. Her father and Gordon Caitland were both out on a case and it was three hours until the surgery. All prescriptions were made and ready, her father’s consulting room set in order and his mail attended to, so that the rest of the day was her own.
I’m f
eeling restless, she mused, that’s all. I don’t like having nothing to do!
It was at that moment that she heard the sound of running feet. Swiftly she crossed to the door and pulled it open, recognizing the boy who came running toward her down the path as one of the Treverson employees.
“You’ve come from the quarry?” she asked. “What is it? Has something happened?”
“There’s been an accident.” The boy was panting, his breath coming between his teeth in short, agonizing gasps. “They said I had to run for the doctor.”
Christine caught him by the sleeve. Her heart felt ice cold and the numbing pain of an awful fear almost checked the words in her throat. ‘
“Can you tell me—who has been hurt—what exactly happened?” she asked hoarsely. “Were you there? I heard the explosion, but they’re so common up here—”
“Not this kind!” The boy had gained breath and was rather savoring the pleasure of his narrative. “They say it was that Mr. Huntley who ordered it to be done, but maybe we’ll never know, for the old man and him have both been hurt—hurt bad.”
For an instant Christine stood without speaking, without thought almost, and then her mind was working clearly again and she led the way around to the front garden, explaining as she went, “My father is out on his rounds, but I know where he can be found. I’ll have my sister go for him and I’ll come back with vou.”
It was uphill all the way, but they ran most of it, and her quickened breathing was like a knife-thrust in her breast as they reached the branching roads that led, one to Glenavon Lodge and the other toward the hidden caverns of the quarries. She could not guess what she would find when she had penetrated that last screen of trees, but she knew that she must reach Huntley’s side, knew it by every intensified beat of her heart that seemed as if it might burst before she got there. He needed her. He needed her!
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